


The Recruitment of Jesse McCree

by purplenerd777



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Not Beta Read, but reaper76 is there, drabble that was written in like an hour, just to let people know, mainly its the recruitment of McCree, ok, so it's not really a reaper76 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 09:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7886572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplenerd777/pseuds/purplenerd777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Jack Morrision has to face the difficult decision of whether or not he should hire a kid who's only 17. Dr. Angela Ziegler is strongly against it and is more than willing to make her opinion known. The Blackwatch Commander is strongly for it and not just 'cause the kid dresses like a cowboy. Ana's mostly there to laugh at her friend's expense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Recruitment of Jesse McCree

**Author's Note:**

> So this kind of runs counter to canon. Like Jack is Overwatch Commander and yet Gabriel is ok with it. Also the timeline is probably completely bull because I don't even know if Ana was still in Overwatch when Jesse was recruited. But I'm the author so what I say goes.

"Commander, Dr. Ziegler is requesting you come see her in medical." A nervous sounding intern commed over his communicator.

Sitting at his desk looking over a recent mission report he commed back without lifting his gaze from the file, "I've a feeling she didn't say request, did she?"

There was a pause, Jack thought he could hear the sound of muffled German cursing over the line, "Ah, no sir, but given the chain of command-"

"It's fine. Tell her I'll be right over." Jack said into the communicator, standing up and making his way towards medical.

One step out of his office he ran into Ana. "Just the man I was looking for." She stated, stepping aside and letting him continue on his way as she followed a pace behind.

"Seems like I'm popular today." Jack grumbled, punching the button to call the elevator.

"Oh, I imagine popular is a nice way of putting it." Ana replied entering the elevator just behind Jack, and hitting the button for medical before he even got the chance to do it himself.

"What would you like to say, Captain?"

"Blackwatch just got back from their mission in New Mexico." Ana reported.

Glancing up Jack let a moment of surprise slip through, "I hadn't heard anything about that."

"Well, I'm letting you know now." The way she said it wasn't unkind. "I wanted to let you know before Angela assaulted you and you didn't know why."

"Yeah, she wanted to see me. What happened?" Formal, as if asking for a normal report, but a cold knot was clenched in his stomach.

"Nothing really. Far as I've heard it was a smooth mission, no casualties," The elevator opened to the brightly lit hallway of medical. The knot in his stomach released immediately.

"But?" he almost let a sigh of relief go, but remembered to catch himself.

"Reyes went and did something unconventional." Ana stated, this time she said it with no small amount of disdain.

"What-"

"COMMANDER!" Dr. Ziegler called from down the hallway, taking off latex gloves in a threatening manner.

"Doctor-"

"I won't allow it. You can't let him do this."

"Dr. Ziegler you'll find I have actually very little control over-"

The young Swiss doctor stormed up to him, heels echoing despite the din of the machines in medical. The doctor who was ten years younger than him and his subordinate threatened him with her discarded gloves, "Oh yes you can. I'm not fixing this, this, BOY, just so Reyes can take him on missions no child should be even thinking about. I won't allow it. I'll quit before I see it happen."

Jack threw Ana a pleading look, but all he got for his troubles was a smug look and a mouthed, _I told you so._

"Angela, if you would explain the situation, I may be able to help you." Jack said, turning back to the doctor and attempting to reinstate the balance of the chain of command, or whatever came close to it in his base.

"Reyes happened!" She shouted, as if that explained everything.

"Yes I understood that much. Now if you would please lower your voice, I'm sure you don't want to disturb your patients." Jack subtly ordered.

"Oh right, yes, of course. Please come into my office." Angela turned around and walked much more calmly to her office, passing a room with a young man, no older that twenty, unconscious and hooked up to various machines. It didn't go past Jack's notice that his left arm was missing, and Reyes' leather jacket was slung over the chair that was used for visitors.

"So what happened?" Jack asked as he entered the office, Ana closing the door behind all of them.

"I got a call from Blackwatch commander telling me they had found a new recruit in New Mexico who had been injured in the field. The commander didn't give me much details so I didn't know what I was dealing with. A little while later I have a 17 year old boy on my operating table with his arm looking like it had gone through a wood-chopper." The Doctor explained in a calm detached way despite her earlier passionate argument, the way she always did when explaining a difficult case.

"Do you have his chart?" The look Ziegler gave him would have been enough to stun a bison in its path.

Instead of replying to the stupid question, she tossed the chart to him, which Jack skimmed over before handing it to Ana.

"And your professional medical opinion would be to not let him join Overwatch?" Jack asked, motioning for Angela to sit, knowing she would have been going non-stop since this McCree first showed up on her operating table.

"Sir, if he wants to join Overwatch that's fine, he would probably be a valuable asset. But for God's sake put the boy in training for at least a couple of years. And sure as hell don't put him in Blackwatch when he's still a teenager."

All of a sudden the door to the office slammed open. The three of them turned to the source of the interruption.

Even though Ana had told him none of Blackwatch had been injured it was still a weight off his chest to see Reyes standing tall and unharmed.

"I'm assuming the good doctor is sprouting all sort of misinformation?" Gabriel asked, glaring at the young doctor, who once would have cowered before this force of nature, but now stood her ground and even offered one of her own glares.

"I'm listening to her side of the story. Yes." Jack replied.

"Well, I'm telling you that it'd be a damn waste to not put this kid in Blackwatch." Gabriel declared.

"So you admit it! You yourself call him a kid and yet you want him going on deadly, unorthodox stealth missions?" Angela cried, standing up from behind her desk. Jack stood up with her in hopes that he could prevent her from attacking the Blackwatch commander if it came to it, while Ana remained in her chair looking as if she was watching a very involved tennis match.

"It's not like he isn't used to this; he sure as hell knew what he was doing with his pistol when he nearly took Gérad out with a single shot." Gabriel replied, not backing down.

"Commander, tell him you won't allow the boy into Blackwatch."

"Morrison, tell me you aren't letting this bleeding heart doctor sway you from what would be the best thing to happen to my division." Gabriel thundered.

Putting his hands up Jack shouted, "I think you both best remember who you're speaking to." That stopped the argument in its track. It wasn't often he pulled rank, but sometimes it got things to end quicker than if he didn't. "I'll make the decision after I talk to this Jesse." With that he headed back towards the boy's room.

Observing the sleeping figure in the bed up close, it was hard to imagine him as efficient a gunslinger as Gabriel had claimed. Next to the bed there was a hat that looked like it had come out of an honest to God old western him and Gabriel used to watch back in training. Picking it up he inspected it closely, it seemed to be the real deal, or as close as one could get these days.

"I wasn't much older than seventeen when I first enlisted." Jack informed the hat and its owner sleeping in the bed.

"That's my hat." The figure in the bed muttered.

Jack nearly dropped the worn thing before placing it gingerly back where he'd found it. "I'm-"

"You're Commander Morrison of Overwatch. Whole world knows who you are." The boy drawled in a manner eerily similar to the way the hardened world-weary protagonists in the old films would.

"What's a 17 year old kid doing getting involved with an arms dealing gang?" Jack asked, deciding to get to the point right away.

"What's an old man doing picking up people's hat when they sleep?" The kid asked.

Jack could tell Ana was outside the room waiting to see what would happen, he had almost forgotten that Fareeha was only slightly younger than this kid. At least he had finally figured out why she had tagged along to a conflict even most seasoned veterans of Overwatch would have stayed out of. "It reminded me of an old holo-vid I used to watch. Now answer my question."

"Dunno, nothing better to do." The sound of a petulant teenager.

"Where'd you learn to shoot a revolver?"

"Taught myself." Pride.

"You got a family?"

The kid's chin jutted out defiantly, "No." Jack'd seen that look before. Seen it in a lot of faces after the Omnic Crisis.

_Aw hell_. "You wanna be doing something better with your time than selling weapons that'll create more orphans?"

There it was, the kid's eyes lit up. Same way Jack's own eyes did when he was offered a spot in SEP, same way Angie's did when she was offered a spot in Overwatch. "Got nothing better to do, not that I'll be much good with only one arm."

"Dr. Ziegler is the best nanobite technology doctor in the world, I'm sure she already has a prototype prosthetic ready for you."

Silence. Jesse's eyes dropped from staring Jack down and focused on his hat instead.

"Look, kid, I'm not trying to force you into joining, but my second in command saw something in you and let me let you in on a secret." He knew Gabe was down the hall with Ana, knew he could hear this conversation just as well as she could. "He doesn't put his faith in just anyone. Hell, if he hadn't thought I was worth it, I'd still be a private on a training base in Seattle with not a clue in the world. So if you do want to do something worthwhile with your time, I'd trust him to make you into something better than a random punk in a gang with an obsession with western holo-vids."

With that he put his hand on the kids left shoulder, gave it a reassuring shake and walked out.

"Angie's not gonna like this." Jack sighed as his two best friends flanked him.

"Ah she'll learn to trust my instincts sooner or later." Reyes crowed smugly on his right.

"If you think it's what's best." Ana said sagely from his left. Her mouth twisted in a frown despite her verbal restraint. Jack figured she didn't like what he was doing, and the part of him that treated Angie and Lena like his own daughters didn't like it too much either.

"Jesse can choose to go through the rigorous Blackwatch selection process or not. Besides he's gonna have a hell of a recovery period ahead of him." Jack soothed, understanding the unvoiced concern.

"Have you seen him? Kid dressed like a _vaquero_." Gabriel praised.

"Please tell me you didn't bring this kid back to base just because you liked his style." Ana sighed, a hint of a good natured smile making its way onto her tired face.

"No, Reyes wouldn't have been so stupid as to have faced Angie's wrath over something like that." Jack turned to face Gabriel. "Right?"

A shit eating grin came over the commander of the most efficient black-ops division in the world's face. "Of course not, Commander, I'm a professional. Now if you excuse me I have a mission report to file."

As Gabriel walked down the hallway towards the Blackwatch controlled part of base his two oldest friends watched him in stunned silence for a moment. "It was mainly due to the cowboy look wasn't it?" Jack sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, attempting to relieve some of the building tension.

"I'm sure it also had to do with the fact the kid almost took out one of Blackwatch's best stealth agents." Ana reassured, though her own smirk did nothing to soothe her friends shot nerves.

"You're both gonna be the death of me." Jack groused as he made his way back toward the mountain of paperwork waiting for him.


End file.
